| Subject: Re: And so it Begins. :) G.O.P. Lawmakers Bolt Bush's Herd |
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Kathyrn
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Date Posted: 09:01:09 07/20/02 Sat
Author Host/IP: 209.240.222.131
In reply to:
The Veeckster **chuckle*
's message, "And so it Begins. :) G.O.P. Lawmakers Bolt Bush's Herd" on 03:33:04 07/20/02 Sat
>July 20, 2002
>G.O.P. Lawmakers Bolt Bush's Herd
>By ALISON MITCHELL
>
>
>ASHINGTON, July 19 — Less than four months before the
>midterm elections, nervous rank-and-file Republicans
>are going their own way on issue after issue in
>Congress, fearful about the economy and no longer
>counting on President Bush's wartime approval ratings
>to carry them back into office.
>
>Some Republicans on Capitol Hill are lurching and
>improvising. At times, they are defying the White
>House, at other times staking out far different ground
>from the president — and even from each other. All
>this tumult has spurred Republican leaders to work
>overtime to try to keep their members in line.
>
>"There's a belief of members of Congress, particularly
>those in tough races, that they have to win these
>races on their own," said Representative John Thune of
>South Dakota, who was recruited by President Bush to
>challenge Senator Tim Johnson, a Democrat, in one of
>the most competitive races in the country.
>
>Representative James C. Greenwood of Pennsylvania, one
>of the first Republicans to recognize that his party
>had to respond fast to the Enron collapse early this
>year, said: "We're three and a half months away from
>election. We know some of these issues are very
>volatile. The president isn't on the ballot. His
>popularity, which is sky high, isn't going to carry us
>anywhere."
>
>As a result, new Republican divisions become evident
>every day. Individual lawmakers are feeling their own
>way on potent election-year matters like corporate
>accountability, access to low-cost drugs, the shape of
>a Homeland Security Department and spending on
>regional concerns like fighting forest fires.
>
>"We don't feel we're in our game at the moment," said
>Representative Christopher Shays of Connecticut.
>
>Only months ago, many Republicans believed that Mr.
>Bush's extraordinary ratings and the war on terror
>would help them expand their majority in the House and
>regain control of the Senate. Now, some say, not only
>do they not expect Mr. Bush to have coattails, they
>also worry that some Democratic candidates for
>governor might.
>
>In what has been a turbulent two weeks, the
>Republican-run House approved legislation to arm
>commercial airline pilots, which was opposed by the
>White House. Senate Republicans sailed far out ahead
>of the White House in supporting tough penalties for
>corporate crimes.
>
>House Republican committee chairmen overturned large
>parts of the president's domestic security
>legislation, leaving it to a special committee,
>dominated by Republican and Democratic leaders, to put
>it back together. The White House also came out
>against legislation to expand access to low-cost
>generic drugs this week, after five Republicans voted
>for the legislation in committee, helping Democrats
>bring it before the Senate for debate.
>
>Many dynamics are in play. Some lawmakers are fighting
>to please their constituents by funneling projects
>back home in an election year and running headlong
>into the White House's insistence on controlling
>spending. More senior Republican committee chairmen
>are resisting giving up Congressional oversight and
>spending powers in the creation of a vast new domestic
>security agency.
>
>For many Republicans, too, the overriding concern has
>been the president's inability to shore up confidence
>in the stock market — and their fear of what could
>happen on Election Day if the economy's problems
>deepen.
>
>"I worry about it all the time," Representative Mark
>Foley, Republican of Florida, said of the economy, as
>he circulated a letter urging Speaker J. Dennis
>Hastert to accept the Senate version of a corporate
>accountability bill instead of trying to negotiate
>differences between the two chambers. "I think people
>vote with their pocketbooks, and they are not very
>confident right now."
>
>Republicans worked closely with the president, Mr.
>Foley said, but "you've got Republicans who want to be
>part of the agenda not just the president's emissaries
>on Capitol Hill."
>
>"We do have a view of our own," he said.
>
>Still, it is not unusual for members of the
>president's party to seek their own way in midterm
>elections. Moreover, the ferment is far from the kind
>of rebellion against President Bill Clinton in 1994
>when Democrats could not even deliver on their
>president's signature health care overhaul and barely
>salvaged an anticrime initiative.
>
>Even as Congressional Republicans chart their own
>courses, they speak warmly of Mr. Bush. In addition,
>White House officials and party leaders insist that
>their members will fall in line on big issues of
>importance to the president. They predict that next
>week, the full House will approve a creating a
>Department of Homeland Security substantially similar
>to Mr. Bush's proposal.
>
>"The president has proposed the most substantial
>reordering of the federal government since the
>1940's," said Representative Rob Portman of Ohio, a
>member of the special homeland security committee. "To
>have us basically accept his framework is remarkable."
>
>Ari Fleischer, the White House press secretary, played
>down any tensions, saying, "There are always going to
>be occasional issues on which the big tent of the
>Republican Party goes in different directions."
>
>But citing issues like tax cuts and Republicans'
>ability to prevail by one vote on trade authority for
>the president, Mr. Fleischer said, "On the president's
>top priorities, the Republicans on their worst day are
>more united than Democrats on their best."
>
>Indeed, many Republicans say Mr. Bush's style of
>focusing on only a few big issues is part of the
>reason for some of the disarray on Capitol Hill: there
>sometimes is no set White House position to rally
>behind.
>
>Representative Peter T. King, Republican of New York,
>said: "The White House seems to save pressure and
>legislative SWAT teams for issues that mean a lot to
>them. They are not out to impose discipline just to
>show they are boss."
>
>Yet some Republicans bristle at the administration's
>operating style. Representative C. W. Bill Young of
>Florida, the chairman of the Appropriations Committee,
>said he remembered with envy how closely the budget
>director in the Clinton administration coordinated
>with Congressional Democrats.
>
>"When they came to me and my counterpart, they came to
>me as a united front," Mr. Young said.
>
>"That kind of a relationship does not exist between me
>as chairman and the O.M.B. director of this
>administration," he added.
>
>The White House dismisses the complaint as an expected
>tension caused by their desire to hold down spending.
>
>Despite the rank-and-file fears, party leaders insist
>that their incumbents will do well on Election Day, as
>long as they tend to local concerns and can point to
>legislative accomplishments on security.
>
>"Right now, we're headed toward ground war,
>grass-roots races," said Representative Thomas M.
>Reynolds, a New York Republican in line to take over
>his party's House re-election committee next year.
>
>Many Republicans are watching the economy closely.
>"The economy is really the wild card in every
>election," Mr. Thune said. "Everybody is very
>cautious."
--------------------
Typical rats jumping ship! LOL
Hey maybe the democrats will take the house back?
Speaking of the stock market.. Did it take a dive yesterday or what?
I predict a few more dives ahead.
Lots of people are unhap
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